Caught by the Valring

I was speaking with a man as we were walking down the hall, asking him who he was. This surprised him--but after I told him who I was, he seemed to nod like things were making sense.

man: "Well, that explains it...he's been drinking and partying a lot lately, we were wondering what got into him."

me: "You mean like a spiritual possession? Well, don't blame me, I don't remember this place. But I do have theories about how consciousnesses whose bodies are sleeping--like mine--can just wander in. I think it has to do with the host's mind being compromised by other reasons--and they just become generally more vulnerable."

He made a gesture like he was snorting cocaine.

me: "Yes, I think drugs are a major source of putting one into a state where that can happen. Has your friend been using drugs?"

man: "I'll take you to who you need to see."

At this point my arm was grabbed by a woman who looked like my grandmother. She was with some other old women who wanted to get my attention. Because I wanted to follow the guy I was talking to, I tried to get free--but was having trouble. I realized she was only holding on to my jacket sleeve, and so I took off the jacket and started to try walking off...but somehow it was like I was still being held by a couple of threads and she was able to pull me back.

me: (irritated) "You're not here right now."

I put my hand on top of her head and collapsed her body downwards and she disappeared. Then I wandered out into something that looked like the indoor part of a train station, and there were mall kiosks along the walls. One was a T-Mobile store, and it was closed--which most of the businesses were. There was an information booth with a guy in a uniform.

me: (yelling) "I'd like to see who it was I needed to see!"

uniform guy: "You want Mr. Mousaka, over here."

He led me to one of the storefronts, which looked like a fairly ordinary Office environment. There were white lights and a lot of gray, perhaps like a Kinko's, and I saw a man in a gray suit who seemed to have a line forming to see him:

me: "Hello Mr... Mousaka? I'm sure you're probably very busy, but what I have to show you is only going to be available for a few seconds and then it will be gone."

I told him my name and my address, which he seemed to successfully write down on a piece of paper.

mousaka: "You do realize that this first room here, where you are, is the guns and healing division."

me: "I don't know. I just know that there's something newsworthy going on here. I mean, here I am--in a 3-D world that is pretty solid..."

At this point I dropped a backpack I was carrying onto the ground, where it landed with a thud.

me: "...and doing all this while my body is asleep. It's like there's a whole parallel universe going on here--you guys living your lives, with people on my planet living theirs--with no knowledge of each other besides what I bring back."

The room shifted a bit, and I turned to face two well-dressed Asian women in business suits. They seemed amused.

woman one: "How did the Valring let you through?"

Note
I didn't know the word, but I guess it could have been "Balring" or "Balrog". Valring is my best guess. A "Val Ring" sounds like something out of D&D that you might wear, but in computer/technology terms "Val" is short for value, and "Ring" is used to describe certain networks and data structures.

woman two: (pointing to my shoulder, smiling) "Ah, it noticed."

Looking to my shoulder I saw that the shoulder of my short-sleeve shirt looked like it was being scrunched up by its threads. Moments later I felt a sharp slash across my back and woke up.

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The accounts written here are as true as I can manage. While the
words are my own, they are not independent creative works of fiction
—in any intentional way. Thus I do not consider the material to
be protected by anything, other than that you'd have to be
crazy to want to try and use it for genuine purposes (much less
disingenuous ones!) But who's to say?